FAIRFIELD TWP., Ohio — Late on the night of Sept 8, 1970, two Hamilton women were shot in the back by a person who fired four rounds in a wooded area on Ohio 128 in Fairfield Twp.
Melvira Vorbroker, then 28, survived after being hospitalized for days. But 22-year-old Georg Ann Reiter was dead on arrival at Mercy Hospital the next morning . Her murder remains unsolved 52 years later.
Melissa Meister, Georg Ann’s niece and daughter of the victim’s twin sister, Geo Ann, wants to make sure her aunt’s case is not forgotten. She is also pushing to determine how much the Butler County Sheriff’s Office has done.
“It is time to figure it out before everybody passes away,” Meister said. “There has been a lot that has been passed over and a lot I think that has not been looked at. Things that have gone by the wayside. It is the 52-year anniversary and it’s time to get as much information as we can at this point.”
Meister, whose mother died five years ago, has joined forces with her uncle in Hamilton, George Reiter, to “jumpstart” attention to the investigation and shine a spotlight on the mystery.
In addition to questioning the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, they have also reached out to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for help.
In late summer 1970, Reiter and Vorbroker, both of Hamilton, were part of a group of women who played adult softball in the area.
Some believe the incident happened because of a love triangle. It’s possible, according to Butler County Sheriff Detective Dan Turner and Lt. Ed Tanner, who have been working the cold case since 2017. And George Reiter, who the theory upset when he first heard it, now thinks it is possible.
“I really believe that’s what it was. Somebody got jealous. I really believe she (Georg Ann) was lured out there,” he said in an interview with the Journal-News this week.
George Reiter had just returned from military service to Hamilton a month before he answered that call in the middle of the night telling him that his sister had been in an accident.
“We got there. They told us she had been shot and she was dead. Just like that,” George Reiter said.
“It killed my parents,” the 75-year-old said, adding his father died a year after the murder and his mother died four years later. “I don’t want to pass without knowing, without it being solved.”
Through boxes of evidence, much of it crude by today’s standards, and written and recorded statements, the detectives say they have determined that Vorbroker and a passerby indicated a man in a suit jacket as the person who fired the shots.
It was about 11 p.m. when Vorbroker parked her red Dodge Charger just off the road at park entrance facing north. She and Reiter were talking and listening to the radio when a man knocked on the window holding a rifle, according to her audio statement in 1970.
“He is wearing a button-up collared shirt with what looks like a sports jacket over top of it. Basically, he tells them that he wants the car,” said Turner.
The women got out of the car, and Vorbroker said she dropped the keys. The man then marched them from the parking area into the darkness of the woods. At some point, the man made some statements indicating he was not alone and there was an accomplice hiding.
Vorbroker said they didn’t fight, but the man shot them both.
“When she (Vorbroker) comes to, she can hear Georg Ann moaning, but she doesn’t know where she is,” Tanner said.
She saw headlights in the distance, found the dropped keys, got in the car and pulled into the road to stop traffic.
A semi tractor trailer truck driver stopped and told her to move the car and shine the lights into the woods to find Reiter. When the woman was located, the truck driver loaded her into Vorbroker’s car and followed them as they drove to the Hamilton Hospital.
The truck driver didn’t explain why he didn’t put the injured women in his truck to offer aid, and, according to Vorbroker, he slapped and yelled at her, telling her to get herself together. She was frantic, bleeding and trying to find Reiter, detectives recounted from the woman’s statement.
One theory is that the shooter did not take the car after firing on the women because he could not find the keys. There is an independent statement from a witness that seems to add credence to the story about the man with the rifle, according to the detectives.
A man driving home after his shift at Fernald gave a handwritten statement that he also saw a man in a dress coat.
“He says he could see the car with its lights on parked right where she said it was and what looked to be a guy in a suit pacing around the car,” Turner said.
A grassy area at the scene had been worn down as if someone had been pacing, according to the crime scene map.
The detectives believe it’s plausible the man in the suit jacket was the shooter. But was someone else involved in setting up the situation and was there an accomplice?
“Or it’s also possible it was just a random person who victimized both of them,” Turner said.
The semi driver and the independent witness are both dead. Vorbroker is alive and living in Florida.
She provided statements to police several times in the 1970s and worked with a artist on a sketch of the man. She has declined much comment to law enforcement since.
Tanner and Turner traveled to Florida last spring to talk with Vorbroker. They were told she was out of town. Other attempts to talk with her have been declined.
“I understand she was treated like a suspect for years,” Tanner said. “We just want a fresh, updated story, so we can hear it ourselves. We just want to talk to her. It won’t be like it was back then.”
Messages left by the Journal-News at phone numbers believed to be Vorbroker’s asking for comment were not returned.
At this point in the investigation, the detectives say a confession is needed to close the case.
“We would like someone to come forward that knows who the shooter is. A death bed confession, something like that. Somebody knows. Or if it was a random shooter, he’s told someone,” Turner said.
The detectives said they have found no reason why anyone would want to harm Georg Ann Reiter.
“By all accounts she was a great person with no enemies,” Turner said.
Meister said she wants to see if media attention turns up something new, but mostly she wants to make sure someone is still investigating the case and it’s not forgotten.
“When you talk to people, they say she was an awesome lady, I also want to make sure we don’t forget her,” Meister said.
She said she is hopeful the sheriff’s office will eventually let the family see the evidence collected over the years, some of which she believes has been lost.
“We know there are a lot of cases, and this one is not really on a lot of people’s minds, but it doesn’t make our hurt any less,” Meister said.
Anyone with information about the double shooting and the murder of Reiter is asked to call Tanner at 513-785-1209.
